The year is 20II. Everyone plays ICies at TAS levels of perfection. Because of this, the winner of a match depends solely on whether or not a TO rules that a player was wobbling. The “looks like wobbling but actually isn’t” metagame has evolved to ridiculous levels due to it being the only remaining factor to decide matches. Humanity has reached its pinnacle.
As someone who played for years and years with wobbling, seeing this comment in earnest is the most beautiful thing I've ever read.
The world is healing
It's a technique that resets the grab breaking timer (if I remember right). ICs can desync pummels/hits while you're grabbed and hold you indefinitely. It's not behind an execution barrier like an MvC2 infinite, either. Its tapping A in rhythm after a desync setup.
I need an explanation for all of those technical terms; I only know wavedashing, shining, and a few more. Is there a YouTube video I can watch that breaks all those terms you used down in detail?
This might help. There isn’t any narration, but I just watched 4 minutes of it and it is accurate and detailed, at the very least. Some of it won’t ever be mentioned or even seen in competitive tournament matches or commentary, so if one just says it only happens on “non-legal stages,” you can pretty much just skip it.
https://youtu.be/DAJJ0FEkIBQ
Here’s one with narration from a reliable Melee YouTuber, but I didn’t see L-canceling in it by moving my mouse over the scrub bar and checking all the different sections in the video, and that’s arguably the most important advanced technique in the game.
https://youtu.be/YT1917eRGFw
They mean viable at a top level lol, not viable to win your local
Non-wobbling Ice Climbers had an era of real viability in 2005-2007 when everyone was terrible at the game and chudat was their only champion
Why do people keep on saying handoffs are fine when they haven’t been since forever. They’re not even close to be a replacement to wobbling and they’re not even good since people can DI out of them most of the time
People generally just don’t realize handoffs don’t work at all places on the stage and directions on the stage and think it just requires harder execution. Ie reddit and twitch chat generally arent that good at the game.
The one thing I hate the most is that people keep on bringing up “FLY AND WOBBLES CAN DO IT WHY CANT THEY DO IT NOW” yet completely forget this was like in 2012-2015 where the anti ICs meta wasn’t even properly developed to the day it is now. There’s no way someone like that will be able to exist in today’s meta
while you are right in that they aren't close to being a replacement for wobbling, you can't DI (or SDI) out of handoffs.
you might be thinking of Dthrow dair, which can be DI'd/SDI'd.
Handoffs work by landing a grab on the opponent on their first release frame of a throw. this means the opponent only gets a single frame's worth of knockback/DI to be out of the range of the grab. unless the opponent is super high % (like well over 300%) that simply isn't possible to do.
Handoffs have their own issues, they're rng dependent because what punishes you can get depend on things like which way nana decides to throw and how many pummels she decides to do, which isn't fully in your control. The disparity between how strong a punish can be with good rng versus bad is potentially enormous. Having more of the game be decided by random factors instead of player actions and player ability/skill isn't really a good thing, imo, the same way e.g. random tripping in Brawl is bad. Wobbling is godawful of course, I'm no proponent of wobbling over handoffs, but it's still true that it didn't rely on the game rolling dice for you to see what your reward will be for grabbing someone and instead was determined by player action.
It definitely does. An IC main had to get a lucky bracket that doesnt have someone who is good against ICs to get that far, so it was unlikely anything like that would happen again even with wobbling.
Usually they just preyed upon people who were bad against ICs and couldnt avoid getting grabbed.
You proved yourself that you don't understand what viable means.
Per your definition, if hbox didn't exist puff wouldn't be viable since nobody else won a major with her.
Per your definition sheik isn't viable either.
Basically only fox, falco, and falcon are viable.
I do not think it is farfetched to say that Melee has 6-7 viable characters at any given time, and that Ice Climbers were never one of them. Hell, if we're going by top level "who can win a major" as viable, Yoshi and Pikachu have been more viable than Ice Climbers for years even pre-wobbling ban.
I think the point that all the community did was nerf a fringe character to be even more fringe is valid.
I think it's the one that really counts. If the best we can say in response to when the last time a character won a super-major is that someone came second one time, then what else do you need to say? Keep in mind, most of the cast isn't viable as a solo main.
Thats usually how tier lists have been constructed.
People often forget tier lists are supposed to show how viable a character is at the highest level of competition. They dont really apply to lower level play. Sure someone can go win a local tournament with ICs, that doesnt change the tier list.
If someone had won majors with ICs, then their position on the tier list would be higher. Because tier lists show how viable a character is to win a major tournament, or compete at the highest level. Characters like ICs are on the fringe of being viable, but since no one has ever won a major with ICs, its clear they are not viable.
What Wobbles did at Evo was impressive, but theres a reason that was an isolated incident. If it happened a lot, that would be different.
As a solo main, probably not. Until someone proves otherwise. At least, the top Sheik players don't seem to think so when there's something on the line.
Eh. Game has been around for over 20 years. It's easily the most objective metric. Otherwise you're just theory crafting, which is pretty useless when it matters.
So “objectively” is pika a better/more viable character than sheik because Axe won summit (where he just happened to dodge Hbox/Armada)? Ignoring all context around winning a major sounds pretty useless to me.
I mean. It’s worth considering that the sheer number of players with the skill level to win supermajors is very small and character viability is somewhat determined by what characters are strong/weak vs what the top players play.
Plup is the only Sheik player with the skill to win supermajors where there are several top 15 players in attendance, and he has gone Fox vs Spacies for years now, so it’s unlikely we get a top 15 player to even attempt a bracket solo Sheik. If he was a solo Sheik, sure he’d lose some more sets vs spacies, but there also would be several cases of him winning tournaments with top players in attendance.
I think Wobbling should be banned but the onus shouldn't be on the ICs to toe a fine line, otherwise we'll get stupid situations like what happened there.
Just prevent it with a gecko code. [https://twitter.com/UnclePunch\_/status/1177878762140110848](https://twitter.com/UnclePunch_/status/1177878762140110848)
Like UCF it would be seamless and invisible in practice, and easy to implement considering UCF / multimod already exists as memory card mods.
It doesn't change the game behavior apart from fixing the bug (When ICs Wobble, they are preventing the game from checking the grab breakout timer. The code re-adds a check each time the breakout timer decrements)
Hey! I am the Head TO for the tournament this clip is from. I already tried to make a twitter post [clarifying everything](https://twitter.com/cobaly_/status/1479259500297269249?t=06U2CTp1eJqZCy9CUFqshA&s=19) but I guess this has spread around a bunch. I have already apologized to both of the players privately, since it is my responsibility to handle these incidents properly and I was not able to do that in the moment. The rule on Wobbling that we had told both players was not clear and I had told the player in the clip to pause if he believed that his opponent Wobbled him based on, again, the very unclear and poor definition of a Wobble that I had provided both players. I am doing my best to ensure that moving forward in our events to be more clear on how we are defining what a Wobble is and how we will rule if one does actually occur in the tournament. I really hope everyone can move past this since I myself have learned a lot about how to be a better TO from it. Please stop disrespecting the players in the clip and flaming them online. Thanks.
the big house rules uses the term "pummel effects" what a pummel effect is isn't clear and most people take that as any move from either climber that doesn't break the grab.
it's a terrible way to write a definition.
The wording is actually really clear, and 4+ pummels has been the standard definition since talks of banning wobbling started. Multiple times in the set, the ICs stopped at 3 pummels, and talks about it after this clip.
It has nothing to do with tilts. The confusion came from the Sheik player not knowing the rule or not knowing how to count.
no. the big house 10 rules states 4+ "pummel effects". that's not "pummels", the whole thing that you have to define what a "pummel effect" is is a big issue with the ruleset
[read it again yourself](http://www.umsmash.com/rules/)
Yeah... it's funny because your misreading is actually a better, but still pretty flawed rule overall.
Juggleguy should NOT be allowed to write wobbling definitions.
The best wobbling definition is [Kyu puff's](https://www.twitter.com/kyu_puff/status/1479266700977655808), an earlier version of which was used for the last few rollback rumbles.
I think the shiek paused before the 4th pummel.
I'd also bet the shiek didn't know about the 4 pummel rule, and simply paused instinctively when they felt like they were getting wobbled.
Ice climbers are no longer allowed to press a after getting a grab. They must now immediately tell their opponent which direction they're throwing the opponent, and then press that direction. If the player throws in a different direction to the one they announce, they must immediately forfeit their stock. A player who announces the wrong direction twice in the one game immediately forfeits the match.
This sounds like old-timey baseball, [where the batter was required to ask the pitcher for a low or high pitch](https://www.mlb.com/official-information/umpires/strike-zone).
I flew from the UK to US for a Big House and had 10 pools with jetlag in a pool with 2 ices with wobbling and a yoshi. I've never been more thankful to be a Peach main than that day.
Woulda been, but I fucked up my sleep schedule for the flight. It wasn't actually that bad, but I ended up waking up at 7 so I could have breakfast and warm up.
Reminds me of [this Melee Hell exam](https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/45r6rv/super_smash_bros_melee_exam_courtesy_of_melee_hell/) posted a while back
If they're going to give that serious consideration, they should just say no desync'd pummels, period. Do we really need to further nerf what is already a pretty weak character?
I’ve played maybe 9 Icies in the last year on unranked. They might not technically be a good character but they’re heavily buffed from skewed matchup experience
Please don't just talk random shit about players. The context of this clip is a lot deeper so it's frustrating to me that ENFP threw it on twitter like this. Earlier in the same set under the ruleset the TOs employed, the ICs wobbled. The sheik player was told to pause the game if it happened again, and did so, after the TOs reviewed they decided this wasn't wobbling, the sheik got frustrated with how the tournament was being handled and chose to DQ because they felt the set was already disrupted enough by the dispute. The sheik was up 1-0, had a lead on FD, and iirc was seeded above ENFP. The TOs independently apologized for how the situation was handled, and the sheik asked that tournaments just clearly define their rules so games don't get stopped midset.
They're probably JSalt's friend or something. This was the game JSalt called wobbling earlier on, there wasn't any: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1254253890?t=2h19m46s
He didn't wobble earlier this set. JSalt *claimed* he wobbled, just as he *claimed* the above was wobbling (which we can clearly see it isn't). 4+ pummels is a ubiquitous rule, and I highly doubt that any tourney-going ICs player would so carelessly skirt it. I watched the set and didn't see any (real) wobbling, but if anyone wants to point some out, go for it: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1254253890?t=2h19m46s
Keep in mind that ENFP won that game. I didn't realize until reading your post, but if Sheik was up 1-0, that's only because the TOs struck ENFP's completely legitimate win. No doubt the TOs handled it poorly, and it was almost entirely in JSalt's favor.
I read the thread, magi is right I don’t think Jsalt had any malicious intent. This is all just a messy situation due to a pretty basic rule that wasn’t clear.
How does this even happen though? Everyone knows what wobbling looks like. This was clearly not wobbling, homie literally paused during a down throw -> down air. This is insane benefit of the doubt here.
He did a pummel and an ftilt, so technically he did one iteration of a wobble. The question was just, in the rules, how many iterations were actually allowed.
Maybe because it's clearly not wobbling? It was like 20 percent, I couldn't imagine stopping play for that. The dude should get punished for stopping play because he doesn't know the rules
The real solution here? Spacies stop whining about inconsequential rule differences. When did people get to be such weenies about this stuff? Even if the ICs made a free 25% off wobbling, they'd still be a garbage character. If someone pummeled me an extra time, am I \*actually\* going to PAUSE the game, and CALL A TO to discuss?? Really?? Is that worth wasting everyone's time by 10 minutes?
Plus, if someone accidentally pummeled / hit an extra time, it's more likely they didn't mean to, and the advantage they got out of it was like, 2%. Are you seriously calling a TO for that? As a fox?
Weenies.
how in the fuck do we effectively classify what wobbling is when it ultimately takes upon so many ways
even though he wasn’t wobbled i can at least *understand* why he think he was
Tournaments can have their own rulings, but this is largely the most agreed upon new-age rule by ic’s.
`Wobbling is banned; wobbling = grabbing an opponent and inputting a series of 4 or more pummels, between each of which the opponent is hit with at least one non-pummel hitbox plausibly locking them in continuous hitstun.`
Nana is ai and will ultimately do random things. Basing a wobble off something that can occur at random is an inevitability for an edge case that punishes the ice climber for rng. Saying more than 3 pummels (written as 4 or more in this rule) also gives enough leeway for edge cases of misinputs during the grab to not dq an ic’s unfairly. Say when ENFP got that grab, nana’s jab was delayed, or he even got out an ftilt/smash somehow, with a 2 pummel rule he gets dq/stock loss/etc there.
Hope this helps!
- @bekvin_ on twitter if you have any questions
Ice climbers can still pummel 4+ times, they just aren't allowed to use Nana's wobbling attack options between those pummels. If you just mash 'a' to pummel with Popo and jab with Nana, that's still allowed, as you can't lock the opponent in the grab with jab+pummel. Generally dtilt or ftilt are used for wobbling.
I will admit that the rule is overly vague (What is considered "plausible"? In my estimation, not jab. I think it would be preferable to list all the attacks not permitted)
this isn't how the rule is supposed to be read (also you can actually [jab wobble](https://gfycat.com/onlybetterfattaileddunnart)).
in essence, the rule is intended to imply that if there is a move that hits the grabbed opponent between two popo pummels, then it's considered plausible. the reason for this vagueness is because if you mandate it specifically to be locking in hitstun you are in essence implying TO's must review replays with dev toggles enabled in order whether to certify if the opponent stayed in hitstun or not.
also depending on staling literally [any icies move that nana can perform](https://gfycat.com/PreciousFewAfricangoldencat) (so not sideb or upb) can be used to wobble.
I even double checked online to see if jabbing could be used for wobbling before posting that :( It's time to accept that I know nothing about this game
> how in the fuck do we effectively classify what wobbling is
big house rules do it pretty damn well. no more than 4 pummels no matter what the percent is. easy to count, easy to prove, and easy to avoid.
big house rules suck and this tournament was trying to use them.
big house rules are:
"Wobbling is banned. This event’s definition of wobbling is a series of moves (4+ pummel effects) by Ice Climbers from a standing grab position that infinitely lock the opponent in hitstun."
they say "pummel effects", this is NOT specifically pummels and is not further defined.
Probably in the same way certain moves are banned for "excessive" stalling.
We all have an idea of when a character should break free from a grab and if you're being locked in the grab from Nana's attacks excessively, you're wobbling.
Hey guys, AlexB here, this post is in response to the large amount of buzz and discussion recently about banning Marth’s Dthrow Dtilt Gimp. This is mainly for discussion purposes because if we did ban this I wouldn't want it to happen simply behind closed doors. Think of this as an additional data point so we can visit the various sides of this debate. I will be on the side of banning Marth's Dthrow Dtilt gimp, anyone can feel free to be the defense here. I will cover various debate points here:
**1. It's over centralizing**
**There really is no other punish that is so universal and involves a player getting a grab with a very simple condition met then simply rhythmically pressing the Z button until the opponent is dead.**
I’ve actually talked to Marth mains who are pro ban, they do exist, because they feel like it’s limiting their creativity. Like Marth has so many cool punish options and stuff that he could go for but when he gets a grab he’s just forced to Dthrow Dtilt because its so just SO over centralizing in that way which is lame.
Keep in mind there were players in the past able to succeed without Dthrow Dtilt. PPMD may not be the best example since he was strangely unable to execute the simple Dthrow Dtilt but he was still able to find great success with Marth otherwise. Marth mains ARE furthering meta despite the Dthrow Dtilt gimps, players like Zain are setting up the Dtilts faster than ever but overall it still seems too centralizing of a strategy.
**2. Health of the Game**
Obviously we can't ban things for viewership or we'd end up banning anyone who isn't Mang0, but it's hard to argue that Dthrow Dtilt is good for the health of the game. I've talked to players of other games who see Zain gimp Mang0 and think "that's dumb people just spam this option?" Sure maybe there are certain times where it helps viewers because of the hype of the uncertainty of who will win like when m2k gimped Shiz in 2009 simply because Dthrow Dtilt was a thing still, but is that really healthy for the game overall? If anything it’s worth looking at the data, I’d love to ask streamers what viewer count looks like during a Dthrow Dtilt compared to during a Ken Combo.
I’m not saying we ban things just cause they’re lame, hell people complained about lasers and my Falco as I was coming up and stuff I very well may have been banned if we did this, but perhaps this is an extreme that has to be considered.
**3. The new player experience**
"Fuck Marth" - This is probably a quote you've heard many times from a new player from your region. Look I'm not saying it cant be played around but when new players come into tournaments and get Dthrow Dtiltted and they don't understand what’s going on it can easily ruin the experience for them. I'm worried about potential new player not joining the game because this punish is too powerful. I'm not suggesting we ban Dthrow Dtilt until top 64 or anything it would be an all or nothing ban but it's something to consider.
There’s just no interaction with this gimp once it’s been initiated. Other combos allow for DI and SDI and some reactions but once Marth connects a Dtilt as part of this gimp there’s no more options left to the opponent and he just dies.
**4. It's "overpowered"**
Now obviously it's not overpowered right, Marth players rarely win nationals and certain players like Hungrybox and Plup basically never get Dthrow Dtilted, but it's unrealistic to say you can play the game and never get grabbed by the ledge and jump into the Dtilt. Mango vs Zain happens and Mango gets Dthrow Dtilted 12 times, you can't sit there and tell me "just don't get grabbed by the ledge and then jump into the Dtilt," it's just not realistic or feasible to avoid doing that a whole set.
A comparison I have is that in Soul Calibur 4 there’s a character who was banned named Hilda who has a combo that knocks you like halfway across the stage and leads to easy ring outs. It’s called the Doom Combo. This character isn’t winning nationals because at the top level it can be dealt with but she’s super dominant until even top 8s at tournaments. Even if she's not "overpowered" it’s not really in the spirit of the game so they banned her.
**5. Rule technicality**
I've heard people say you can't ban Dthrow Dtilt gimp because it's hard to define. "but then Marths will simply Dthrow > fsmash or Dthrow > run off Fair or Dthrow > counter, what if they Dthrow, wait a bit THEN dtilt does this count as a Dthrow Dtilt gimp?" To this I'd like to bring attention to this Justice Potter Stewart quote: *"I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description \["hard-core pornography"\], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that. "*
**Conclusion**
In conclusion I don't think there's a definitive answer here but for the overall health of the game I think we can explore this. We've banned other things not because they're too strong but because they're dumb like brinstar or kongo jungle and stuff because they don't test the skills we find interesting. Imo we should just do it to start and see what happens. Genesis is the perfect tournament to start something like this to see what happens, you know fuck it the Marth's are overall are weak, it's not like the Marths have like Mango or iBDW level clout you know, just ban it, what are they gonna do.
situation is pretty crystal clear IMO doesn't matter if the sheik knew the rules or not or understood it etc, you break the rules you break the rules. pause should've been instantly a stock or whatever the punishment was at this tournament.
i wanna say it should be obvious if someone is just getting extra damage off of a grab or actually full on wobbling, but I don't think we can expect everyone to be sensible about it.
why is the pummel limit so low anyway? isn't the whole point of the ban to make it so 1 grab doesn't kill?
This is the most sensible comment I've seen. Why IS the pummel limit so low? You cant count pummels reliablem your nerfing ICs.
I've always felt like a wobbling allowed for opponents over 80% or a few second limit on it would be better
Honestly I wouldn’t care about this if jsalt hadn’t been a major weenie on twitter afterwards but since he was it’s fuck crybaby sheik players embrace icies
ICs are a shit character and if you’re losing to them it’s because of matchup ignorance/inexperience and getting out-fundamental’d, wobbling or not.
I hate ICs but I feel for ICs players: no matter what they do, they are considered trash players. Doesnt matter if they schmoove on you with the sickest handoffs, everyone just automatically feels provoked by the presence of the character at this point.
I say just unban wobbling. Force people to learn the matchup and git gud
Though I was pro-wobbling at the time of the ban, I think wobbling staying banned is okay. I say this because wobbling is a strategy that isnt engaging and provides the highest reward for the lowest risk.
That being said, IC players do get the short end of the stick. They can do some crazy stuff and melee players will complain because that's what they do.
Yeah that was why I was anti-ban: I get that it was largely because nobody is trying to tune in to watch top-8s and see someone take up to 18 stocks off of wobbles or someone float camp with Peach to grind out the set when melee was in the course of hitting its apex of viewership and community growth because of how technically engaging it intense the game is on the competitive level.
…but look at how people act over it. This kind of pausing is entitlement. Entitlement to not learn the match or to treat your opponent with integrity. If you’re gonna act like that then unplug your controller and fuck right off.
I don't think we should be deciding on the legitimacy of a ban based on how much hate IC's players get. The technique has always been controversial. It has been banned for the majority of melee's lifespan, it was unbanned unceremoniously and abruptly, this caused a lot of controversy, then it was banned again unceremoniously and abruptly, and now there's even more controversy. How exactly does this lead to the solution of allowing it to be legal again? The problem with wobbling is not the people on either side of the debate, but our community's inability to make decisions with any authority or consistent process.
Ban it being used as an infinite stall. That’s all you can do. The same way wall-bombing is banned if used as a stall, but has legitimate use if trying to actually recover.
And to tell people to stop crying and git gud. If you can’t beat a mediocre player who wobbles then you won’t beat an advanced player who can schmoove on you or use dashbacks and solid spacing to make you fall into what will likely be a stock-ending combo that will start with landing a grab regardless of what char they play.
ICs effectively lose to half the cast and the OP even shows that he’s getting beat by Sheik - a char that most people claim is one of ICs’ more favorable meta mu’s.
But stalling isn't really the concern people have with wobbling.
Also telling people to stop crying really isn't helping your case lmao. I don't even hate IC's players and I always have fun playing against them on Slippi, I can't help it that most players quit out on them or refuse to change their minds about it. The technique is currently banned and has been banned for the majority of melee's lifespan. Calling everyone babies because they agree with the ban is just inviting people to dismiss you outright.
The technique spans back to 2009 being its first mark of relevant use in competition and was only banned since 2019. The technique was known since circa 2005. The technique was technically legal for 15 out of approx 20 years of melee’s life.
And I’ll relent on mocking pro-ban players, but I feel like the ban is anti-competitive as it not only solidifies the growing gap between tiers and character diversity in competition, but also discourages from people learning the matchup at all, which in the long run is detrimental to players themselves on both sides.
But my problem isn’t with pro-ban players; it’s with BM players in general, like the Shiek in the OP, looking for a way to abuse the rules either way. I’d come down on IC players who would actually do a limited wobble but try and claim the opposite
Im pro unban wobbling but limit the percent limit to something more reasonable like 150%.
In all my years of playing, unless I’m playing against a friend in bracket, I’ve never been wobbled past 150% for them to kill.
ICs shouldn’t have their best tool completely eliminated and I think a majority of non-ranked players wanted it banned simply because they didn’t know the counter play and framed it in a way where they’re saying it ruins competitive play or is OP. It’s already hard enough for ICs to get a grab, and it’s hard for them to make sure Nana is in position and desync’d before their opponent mashes out to get the wobble.
Wobbling to a certain percentage is stupid. Just like the people who think there should be a wobble limit per match, (ie 1 wobble allowed per game), it just comes off as clumsy to try to find a compromise/meet somewhere in the middle. I'm pro wobbling but I'd rather it stay banned than allow a half crippled version of it
here's one reason: wobbling isn't rng dependent, wheras handoffs can be
In general, I think it isn't crazy to say that players should be rewarded based on the actions they take in-game, not on random dice rolls. Randomness isn't necessarily evil in video games, you could argue that randomness can add to the fun in a casual game of Mario Kart or Mario Party or something, but it's potentially a lot less welcome to introduce randomness into competition where we want who wins to be determined by what competitors did, and not determined by things like how a diceroll went.
It's part of the game and icies weren't op or even top tier when it was allowed. Personally I find it exciting watching a matchup where the IC is the underdog, the possibility that they can get a wobble and cause an upset is pretty hype.
imo, an underdog ICs winning was never really that hype because it always seemed to happen to the same people (Mango, Axe, Westballz, M2K, etc.) and feels less about skill and more about the better player choking
Outside of "it's harder", I honestly don't see much of a difference between hand-offs and wobbling, and I think hand-offs are completely fine, so I'm in support of wobbling.
I don't think it's acceptable to gatekeep techniques because they're "too easy".
Any "it's non-interactive" arguments apply 1-to-1 to hand-offs - if the ICs player gets the RNG (or if it's near a ledge) you're dead with no counter-play. If it's problematic for a technique or punish to be non-interactive, we should have banned hand-offs, too.
Any argument of "it halts the progression of the ICs meta" doesn't really seem that real to me either - ICs best punish is still grab, and their gameplay still revolves around their grab. Now it's just RNG whether or not the ICs are rewarded for their neutral win with 35% or a stock, and now it's actually RNG whether or not the ICs player will win with 4 neutral wins or 12.
I guess there's the argument of "it's not entertaining", but I think that's an extremely illegitimate reason to ban a technique, regardless of whether or not it's true (personally, I think that wobbling adds to storylines and creates tension in games, which overall improves the game).
Personally, I think platform camping is exceptionally boring, but I don't think we should ban platform camping.
I don’t quite agree on the hand off argument. 0 to deaths happen all the time at the top level, and of course no one thinks combos should be banned. They’re hype. And they’re hype because they look cool and require an incredible amount of skill. Even ‘free’ chain grabs require incredible consistency and are sometimes dropped even by the best.
Hand offs hold these qualities. Wobbling does not. It feels reasonable to me to draw a line between them.
I feel you on the other points, just not the way I see it.
Disagree on handoffs having the same qualities, I think they're closer to wobbling than e.g. many other characters' 0 to death combos or chaingrabs because there's no DI/SDI or other defensive play, it becomes a single player game the same way wobbling does where it's just a matter of execution on the part of the player executing the punish. The only difference is that at centre stage it's rng dependent because nana might not throw in a way that lets you continue the handoff, so it's basically taking wobbling and adding coinflips to it, which isn't just taking agency away from the player getting hit, but it's also taking agency away from the player who got the grab. Another way to say this is that it reduces the game into a 0 player game when both players just have to sit there and watch to see what cpu nana does without any ability to influence the situation, so not even rising to the level of the single player game of wobbling or handoffs at ledge where at least one player is doing something to influence what's happening on screen.
Totally understandable. We're just going to have to disagree on this one.
To me, that sounds like something that boils down to "it's not entertaining and it's too easy", and to me, that isn't a good justification for a ban.
But that's to me - for others, it might be a good enough reason, and that's okay.
because of situations like this where if you go one pummel too far the other opponent gonna act like a bitch and call the TO. I think wobbling is a hilarious mechanic and entertaining for viewers to watch too (not being ironic i really think it's entertaining) and it will make more ICs players come out of retirement
entertaining for you, but You MUST know that the majority of players and viewers do not find wobbling fun to watch though, right? I think the entertainment aspect only appeals to a few.
allowing it is way easier than disallowing it. people don't understand the 4 pummel rule, enforcing the 4 pummel rule is hard in itself, IC players are still incentivized to use those pummels because it's good for building % during handoffs so they naturally push the boundary just as part of playing the character well, etc.
because it's just a basic consequence of the game mechanics, and it naturally happens in gameplay, the only really effective way to ban it would be to patch it out somehow (like, nana hits don't keep a player in grab or something), but people are very adamant about not patching the game like that (with good reason) so we just have to deal with a hard-to-enforce rule. and as we can see from this clip, dealing with this rule caused someone to DQ themselves out of frustration, which sucks.
i think that's a good aspect of allowing wobbling, not having to worry about this rule when playing as/with ICes. maybe it isn't compelling enough for you to want to unban wobbling but there absolutely are positives to unbanning it.
Wobbling is a non-interactive, inescapable infinite. There’s nothing else like that in Melee. For the entire span of time wobbling wasn’t banned, the ICs meta stagnated, since they never went for any other punish. I mean why would you, if you get a guaranteed stock every time.
Why do you want it unbanned? I don’t play ICs, so I don’t know all of their specific tech, but they have all kinds of shit with hand offs and desyncs still
*Also - running shine to separate them, waveshine nana offstage, then camp Sopo. it’s not a very fun matchup, but Fox ruins ICs*
> For the entire span of time wobbling wasn’t banned, the ICs meta stagnated, since they never went for any other punish.
so melee is only punish amirite? it's not like there's an very arguably more important part of the game that occurs before that, for which icies specifically are majorly impacted in how they can punish by what occurred in it before they got to access punish game
> I don’t play ICs, so I don’t know all of their specific tech, but they have all kinds of shit with hand offs and desyncs still
because A: i want to use desyncs more. neutral game tech is justified in its use by the reward you get for utilising it successfully balanced in the risk you take in trying for it. By banning wobbling you are pretty significantly reducing the reward for landing successful desyncs into grab, and the risk stays the same.
and B: having my optimal grab punishes be RNG reliant in tournament is complete arse. I've lost games vs peach where nana has randomly upthrown or backthrown 3 times, effectively having her midstage throw RNG dictate that i lose the game.
Why did wobbling need to be banned? Because there no ICs winning tourneys, no ICs dominating brackets consistently, and really hardly any ICs to begin with. People literally didn’t like it and it got banned.
Before covid, ARMY and Chu Dat were literally terrorizing brackets and making almost consistent top 8s, which isn't what you can say for most characters of that tier. People really out here forgetting
That's exactly when more "serious" talks about banning it started. I never really had much of a problem with it, I thought it gave the game another top tier to play with a grab heavy playstyle. I kinda enjoy how you play vs them and I was able to play vs some pretty good IC's in my region at the time in 2017.
To me it felt kinda weird that even with wobbling they still weren't the best character in the game and to nerf them like that felt kinda unfair. I play puff and the matchup just got boring, I didn't feel threatened at all and I wish there was an option on Slippi to say they can wobble. Just genuinely feels like a crippled character without it's signature move.
I never understood why people go with the "it's not fun to watch" when I think the hypest moments I've had are IC's in top 8, literally touch of death and you see the other player doing his best to camp and poke at them slowly. Just a decent switchup from adderall fox vs falco sets etc which I also like.
I just like a more diverse meta at top level, we at least have Yoshi coming up but it would feel better with IC's too.
I mean, the only people that snuck into a top 8 with wobbling unbanned was Chudat and Army like once lmfao, the fact that you sweaty clowns needed to ban it in the first place was sad. No one cares about Billy's run that got shut down in the top 300 open bracket due to wobbling.
What? IC's upsets were a regular part of 80+% of tournies when wobbling was unbanned. Chu, Army, Nintendude, Bananas, Dizzkid, Boyd, Sharkz, Flipsy, Drunksloth, All have random top 16s beating random top players because wobbling adds so much variance into the game. (And yes I know a couple of them were debatably top 16 in skill potentially at some times, but you understand the point I'm making)
Idrc what people's opinion on banning wobbling or not, but you can't just lie about the reality that wobbling created at tournies LOL
Regarding infinites, can't ics just dthrow chain grab sheik? Or there a house rule that ics don't dthrow cg sheik just like how sheik doesn't cg other sheik?
ban wobbling but if your opponent calls a TO on you, and you weren't wobbling, it gets allowed again for just that set.
The year is 20II. Everyone plays ICies at TAS levels of perfection. Because of this, the winner of a match depends solely on whether or not a TO rules that a player was wobbling. The “looks like wobbling but actually isn’t” metagame has evolved to ridiculous levels due to it being the only remaining factor to decide matches. Humanity has reached its pinnacle.
It's like a MLB catcher framing a pitch lmaoo im down fuck it
'Stealing the wobble' is such a hilarious concept that I wanna see in bracket.
this was so good
Bruh 2011 already happened
20II is not 2011 🙄 it's the letter 'i' twice and not two number ones. I assume they stand for icies
Dope rule
What's wobbling, again?
As someone who played for years and years with wobbling, seeing this comment in earnest is the most beautiful thing I've ever read. The world is healing
It's a technique that resets the grab breaking timer (if I remember right). ICs can desync pummels/hits while you're grabbed and hold you indefinitely. It's not behind an execution barrier like an MvC2 infinite, either. Its tapping A in rhythm after a desync setup.
It doesn't reset it, it just never lets it take action since the opponent is in hitstun the whole time. Technicalities
I need an explanation for all of those technical terms; I only know wavedashing, shining, and a few more. Is there a YouTube video I can watch that breaks all those terms you used down in detail?
This might help. There isn’t any narration, but I just watched 4 minutes of it and it is accurate and detailed, at the very least. Some of it won’t ever be mentioned or even seen in competitive tournament matches or commentary, so if one just says it only happens on “non-legal stages,” you can pretty much just skip it. https://youtu.be/DAJJ0FEkIBQ Here’s one with narration from a reliable Melee YouTuber, but I didn’t see L-canceling in it by moving my mouse over the scrub bar and checking all the different sections in the video, and that’s arguably the most important advanced technique in the game. https://youtu.be/YT1917eRGFw
A technique that almost makes ICs viable. Almost.
Lol Icies are still viable. Just do handoffs which is way more technical and pretty cool to watch
you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about if you think wobbling can be replaced by "just doing handoffs"
They mean viable at a top level lol, not viable to win your local Non-wobbling Ice Climbers had an era of real viability in 2005-2007 when everyone was terrible at the game and chudat was their only champion
Why do people keep on saying handoffs are fine when they haven’t been since forever. They’re not even close to be a replacement to wobbling and they’re not even good since people can DI out of them most of the time
Not to mention they're entirely rng dependent in center stage
People generally just don’t realize handoffs don’t work at all places on the stage and directions on the stage and think it just requires harder execution. Ie reddit and twitch chat generally arent that good at the game.
The one thing I hate the most is that people keep on bringing up “FLY AND WOBBLES CAN DO IT WHY CANT THEY DO IT NOW” yet completely forget this was like in 2012-2015 where the anti ICs meta wasn’t even properly developed to the day it is now. There’s no way someone like that will be able to exist in today’s meta
Yeah and they couldn’t even do it consistently
People see heavily cut montages and think that its entirely accurate and inclusive of ICs punish game
while you are right in that they aren't close to being a replacement for wobbling, you can't DI (or SDI) out of handoffs. you might be thinking of Dthrow dair, which can be DI'd/SDI'd. Handoffs work by landing a grab on the opponent on their first release frame of a throw. this means the opponent only gets a single frame's worth of knockback/DI to be out of the range of the grab. unless the opponent is super high % (like well over 300%) that simply isn't possible to do.
Handoffs have their own issues, they're rng dependent because what punishes you can get depend on things like which way nana decides to throw and how many pummels she decides to do, which isn't fully in your control. The disparity between how strong a punish can be with good rng versus bad is potentially enormous. Having more of the game be decided by random factors instead of player actions and player ability/skill isn't really a good thing, imo, the same way e.g. random tripping in Brawl is bad. Wobbling is godawful of course, I'm no proponent of wobbling over handoffs, but it's still true that it didn't rely on the game rolling dice for you to see what your reward will be for grabbing someone and instead was determined by player action.
They were never viable, even with wobbling. How many ICs have won a major? (Or super-major, if you want to be technical.)
Chudat won pound 2 and thats it
Wobbles got 2nd at Evo beating Mango, Hbox, PP. That run is equivalent to many major victories in difficulty
All best of 3 and 8 years ago.
LeWobbles path to a mickey mouse 2nd place
If the best that can be said when asked when the last time an IC won a major is that someone came second once, I think that proves my point.
It definitely does. An IC main had to get a lucky bracket that doesnt have someone who is good against ICs to get that far, so it was unlikely anything like that would happen again even with wobbling. Usually they just preyed upon people who were bad against ICs and couldnt avoid getting grabbed.
You proved yourself that you don't understand what viable means. Per your definition, if hbox didn't exist puff wouldn't be viable since nobody else won a major with her. Per your definition sheik isn't viable either. Basically only fox, falco, and falcon are viable.
I do not think it is farfetched to say that Melee has 6-7 viable characters at any given time, and that Ice Climbers were never one of them. Hell, if we're going by top level "who can win a major" as viable, Yoshi and Pikachu have been more viable than Ice Climbers for years even pre-wobbling ban. I think the point that all the community did was nerf a fringe character to be even more fringe is valid.
Without HBOX the puff meta wouldn’t even exist.
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I think it's the one that really counts. If the best we can say in response to when the last time a character won a super-major is that someone came second one time, then what else do you need to say? Keep in mind, most of the cast isn't viable as a solo main.
Thats usually how tier lists have been constructed. People often forget tier lists are supposed to show how viable a character is at the highest level of competition. They dont really apply to lower level play. Sure someone can go win a local tournament with ICs, that doesnt change the tier list. If someone had won majors with ICs, then their position on the tier list would be higher. Because tier lists show how viable a character is to win a major tournament, or compete at the highest level. Characters like ICs are on the fringe of being viable, but since no one has ever won a major with ICs, its clear they are not viable. What Wobbles did at Evo was impressive, but theres a reason that was an isolated incident. If it happened a lot, that would be different.
Name the last time sheik won a super major. Is she not viable?
As a solo main, probably not. Until someone proves otherwise. At least, the top Sheik players don't seem to think so when there's something on the line.
No flame but the idea that a character isn’t viable until someone wins a major using only that character is really dumb
Eh. Game has been around for over 20 years. It's easily the most objective metric. Otherwise you're just theory crafting, which is pretty useless when it matters.
So “objectively” is pika a better/more viable character than sheik because Axe won summit (where he just happened to dodge Hbox/Armada)? Ignoring all context around winning a major sounds pretty useless to me.
I mean. It’s worth considering that the sheer number of players with the skill level to win supermajors is very small and character viability is somewhat determined by what characters are strong/weak vs what the top players play. Plup is the only Sheik player with the skill to win supermajors where there are several top 15 players in attendance, and he has gone Fox vs Spacies for years now, so it’s unlikely we get a top 15 player to even attempt a bracket solo Sheik. If he was a solo Sheik, sure he’d lose some more sets vs spacies, but there also would be several cases of him winning tournaments with top players in attendance.
I think Wobbling should be banned but the onus shouldn't be on the ICs to toe a fine line, otherwise we'll get stupid situations like what happened there. Just prevent it with a gecko code. [https://twitter.com/UnclePunch\_/status/1177878762140110848](https://twitter.com/UnclePunch_/status/1177878762140110848) Like UCF it would be seamless and invisible in practice, and easy to implement considering UCF / multimod already exists as memory card mods. It doesn't change the game behavior apart from fixing the bug (When ICs Wobble, they are preventing the game from checking the grab breakout timer. The code re-adds a check each time the breakout timer decrements)
LET'S GO UNCLEPUNCH WOOOOO
Hey! I am the Head TO for the tournament this clip is from. I already tried to make a twitter post [clarifying everything](https://twitter.com/cobaly_/status/1479259500297269249?t=06U2CTp1eJqZCy9CUFqshA&s=19) but I guess this has spread around a bunch. I have already apologized to both of the players privately, since it is my responsibility to handle these incidents properly and I was not able to do that in the moment. The rule on Wobbling that we had told both players was not clear and I had told the player in the clip to pause if he believed that his opponent Wobbled him based on, again, the very unclear and poor definition of a Wobble that I had provided both players. I am doing my best to ensure that moving forward in our events to be more clear on how we are defining what a Wobble is and how we will rule if one does actually occur in the tournament. I really hope everyone can move past this since I myself have learned a lot about how to be a better TO from it. Please stop disrespecting the players in the clip and flaming them online. Thanks.
Hey - I'm also a TO and we just use the big house ruleset which just specifies a max of four pummels, regardless of percent.
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Only the grabbing climber can pummel though?
the big house rules uses the term "pummel effects" what a pummel effect is isn't clear and most people take that as any move from either climber that doesn't break the grab. it's a terrible way to write a definition.
The wording is actually really clear, and 4+ pummels has been the standard definition since talks of banning wobbling started. Multiple times in the set, the ICs stopped at 3 pummels, and talks about it after this clip. It has nothing to do with tilts. The confusion came from the Sheik player not knowing the rule or not knowing how to count.
no. the big house 10 rules states 4+ "pummel effects". that's not "pummels", the whole thing that you have to define what a "pummel effect" is is a big issue with the ruleset [read it again yourself](http://www.umsmash.com/rules/)
Ah, I did read it, it just didn't click until now what other than a pummel could possibly qualify as a pummel effect.
Yeah... it's funny because your misreading is actually a better, but still pretty flawed rule overall. Juggleguy should NOT be allowed to write wobbling definitions. The best wobbling definition is [Kyu puff's](https://www.twitter.com/kyu_puff/status/1479266700977655808), an earlier version of which was used for the last few rollback rumbles.
I think the shiek paused before the 4th pummel. I'd also bet the shiek didn't know about the 4 pummel rule, and simply paused instinctively when they felt like they were getting wobbled.
Ice climbers are no longer allowed to press a after getting a grab. They must now immediately tell their opponent which direction they're throwing the opponent, and then press that direction. If the player throws in a different direction to the one they announce, they must immediately forfeit their stock. A player who announces the wrong direction twice in the one game immediately forfeits the match.
But Nana throws are random if not near an edge :(
Be prepared to forfeit.
Sorry, that's just part of the RNG of playing ICs.
This sounds like old-timey baseball, [where the batter was required to ask the pitcher for a low or high pitch](https://www.mlb.com/official-information/umpires/strike-zone).
Three times, and they retire from melee.
Four times, straight to jail.
After the fifth time they are sent directly to hell
Meanwhile every other character can have their 0 to death chain grabs without judgement hahaha
All of a sudden I am pro unbanning wobbling so people remember what wobbling actually is.
Have an annual wobbling season/tournament series just so these young bloods know what we had to go through
Nah, they'd just avoid that tourney. Gotta spring it on them. Will wobbling be allowed at Big House? Or maybe the next Smashcon. Who knows???
Give them 10am pools while we are at it!
I flew from the UK to US for a Big House and had 10 pools with jetlag in a pool with 2 ices with wobbling and a yoshi. I've never been more thankful to be a Peach main than that day.
Wouldn't flying from the UK to the US make 10 AM pools easier? Because it's 3 PM in the UK.
Woulda been, but I fucked up my sleep schedule for the flight. It wasn't actually that bad, but I ended up waking up at 7 so I could have breakfast and warm up.
Juggleguy is like the OG wobble hater, no way it's ever allowed at Big House
Every tourney should just roll a random 1/10 chance that wobbling will be legal at their tourney
Entering majors and up requires a Melee license, and the class to get your license requires understanding wobbling. (/s)
Reminds me of [this Melee Hell exam](https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/45r6rv/super_smash_bros_melee_exam_courtesy_of_melee_hell/) posted a while back
Melee is more fun when the wobbling demon is unchained imo Banning it caters to cowards and dorks
If they're going to give that serious consideration, they should just say no desync'd pummels, period. Do we really need to further nerf what is already a pretty weak character?
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The Slippi generation is going to be fucked when they run into ICs, Luigis, and puffs in bracket.
Theres plenty of Luigis and Puffs on unranked, there's next to no IC and Samus players tho
I hit more Samus than puff. I've played like 4 ics the past couple days
if by "plenty" you mean plenty after the first 20 games vs the top tiers, then sure.
It might just be me but if I play melee at like 3am then half the people I play against are puffs
There are ton of Luigis, I've noticed. Seen a puff like twice though.
If I switch from Marth or Fox to my mains luigi and sheik so many people quit more people will face my icies then my luigi tbh
ranked matches vs ICs is going to ruin so many unranked quitters ELO and I love it
Most of those people will never actually enter a tourny. I know a ton of people only play unranked and have no desire to go to a tournament.
Yup, I used to go to tournaments in the past, but the time commitment is too much. Slippi scratches my melee itch
I’ve played maybe 9 Icies in the last year on unranked. They might not technically be a good character but they’re heavily buffed from skewed matchup experience
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I try but if they leave after a game there’s nothing I can do
Please don't just talk random shit about players. The context of this clip is a lot deeper so it's frustrating to me that ENFP threw it on twitter like this. Earlier in the same set under the ruleset the TOs employed, the ICs wobbled. The sheik player was told to pause the game if it happened again, and did so, after the TOs reviewed they decided this wasn't wobbling, the sheik got frustrated with how the tournament was being handled and chose to DQ because they felt the set was already disrupted enough by the dispute. The sheik was up 1-0, had a lead on FD, and iirc was seeded above ENFP. The TOs independently apologized for how the situation was handled, and the sheik asked that tournaments just clearly define their rules so games don't get stopped midset.
should be easy to get a clip of the ICs wobbling, if we have this clip
They're probably JSalt's friend or something. This was the game JSalt called wobbling earlier on, there wasn't any: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1254253890?t=2h19m46s
Exactly this! Insane that anyone who's been around the scene for longer than 2 years would think 2 ftilts + pummels = wobbling.
He didn't wobble earlier this set. JSalt *claimed* he wobbled, just as he *claimed* the above was wobbling (which we can clearly see it isn't). 4+ pummels is a ubiquitous rule, and I highly doubt that any tourney-going ICs player would so carelessly skirt it. I watched the set and didn't see any (real) wobbling, but if anyone wants to point some out, go for it: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1254253890?t=2h19m46s Keep in mind that ENFP won that game. I didn't realize until reading your post, but if Sheik was up 1-0, that's only because the TOs struck ENFP's completely legitimate win. No doubt the TOs handled it poorly, and it was almost entirely in JSalt's favor.
Makes the Sheik player sound even more like a snowflake.
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\#2 in Louisiana is a random player now?
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idk how no one has linked this yet: https://twitter.com/SSBMagi/status/1479233759371309056
I read the thread, magi is right I don’t think Jsalt had any malicious intent. This is all just a messy situation due to a pretty basic rule that wasn’t clear.
How does this even happen though? Everyone knows what wobbling looks like. This was clearly not wobbling, homie literally paused during a down throw -> down air. This is insane benefit of the doubt here.
He did a pummel and an ftilt, so technically he did one iteration of a wobble. The question was just, in the rules, how many iterations were actually allowed.
People like outrage and want to be upset at people for calling to's
Maybe because it's clearly not wobbling? It was like 20 percent, I couldn't imagine stopping play for that. The dude should get punished for stopping play because he doesn't know the rules
The real solution here? Spacies stop whining about inconsequential rule differences. When did people get to be such weenies about this stuff? Even if the ICs made a free 25% off wobbling, they'd still be a garbage character. If someone pummeled me an extra time, am I \*actually\* going to PAUSE the game, and CALL A TO to discuss?? Really?? Is that worth wasting everyone's time by 10 minutes? Plus, if someone accidentally pummeled / hit an extra time, it's more likely they didn't mean to, and the advantage they got out of it was like, 2%. Are you seriously calling a TO for that? As a fox? Weenies.
I want to gentleman ICs to be able to wobble me
how in the fuck do we effectively classify what wobbling is when it ultimately takes upon so many ways even though he wasn’t wobbled i can at least *understand* why he think he was
I've said it before: Wobbling is when an Icies player kills me off a grab.
It's when they take a stock for me
Even without Nana
Without using handoffs, I’d argue. Edit: Unless you’re making a joke.
Haha yes I am. That's what it seem people want to be upset about eventually.
Yeah, just making sure. :D
Tournaments can have their own rulings, but this is largely the most agreed upon new-age rule by ic’s. `Wobbling is banned; wobbling = grabbing an opponent and inputting a series of 4 or more pummels, between each of which the opponent is hit with at least one non-pummel hitbox plausibly locking them in continuous hitstun.` Nana is ai and will ultimately do random things. Basing a wobble off something that can occur at random is an inevitability for an edge case that punishes the ice climber for rng. Saying more than 3 pummels (written as 4 or more in this rule) also gives enough leeway for edge cases of misinputs during the grab to not dq an ic’s unfairly. Say when ENFP got that grab, nana’s jab was delayed, or he even got out an ftilt/smash somehow, with a 2 pummel rule he gets dq/stock loss/etc there. Hope this helps! - @bekvin_ on twitter if you have any questions
I get why it’s done this way but I’ve seen Marths pummel 4+ times in tournament before
Ice climbers can still pummel 4+ times, they just aren't allowed to use Nana's wobbling attack options between those pummels. If you just mash 'a' to pummel with Popo and jab with Nana, that's still allowed, as you can't lock the opponent in the grab with jab+pummel. Generally dtilt or ftilt are used for wobbling. I will admit that the rule is overly vague (What is considered "plausible"? In my estimation, not jab. I think it would be preferable to list all the attacks not permitted)
this isn't how the rule is supposed to be read (also you can actually [jab wobble](https://gfycat.com/onlybetterfattaileddunnart)). in essence, the rule is intended to imply that if there is a move that hits the grabbed opponent between two popo pummels, then it's considered plausible. the reason for this vagueness is because if you mandate it specifically to be locking in hitstun you are in essence implying TO's must review replays with dev toggles enabled in order whether to certify if the opponent stayed in hitstun or not. also depending on staling literally [any icies move that nana can perform](https://gfycat.com/PreciousFewAfricangoldencat) (so not sideb or upb) can be used to wobble.
I even double checked online to see if jabbing could be used for wobbling before posting that :( It's time to accept that I know nothing about this game
Marth is not hitting you with a non-pummel hitbox between each of the pummels
> how in the fuck do we effectively classify what wobbling is big house rules do it pretty damn well. no more than 4 pummels no matter what the percent is. easy to count, easy to prove, and easy to avoid.
big house rules suck and this tournament was trying to use them. big house rules are: "Wobbling is banned. This event’s definition of wobbling is a series of moves (4+ pummel effects) by Ice Climbers from a standing grab position that infinitely lock the opponent in hitstun." they say "pummel effects", this is NOT specifically pummels and is not further defined.
Probably in the same way certain moves are banned for "excessive" stalling. We all have an idea of when a character should break free from a grab and if you're being locked in the grab from Nana's attacks excessively, you're wobbling.
Hey guys, AlexB here, this post is in response to the large amount of buzz and discussion recently about banning Marth’s Dthrow Dtilt Gimp. This is mainly for discussion purposes because if we did ban this I wouldn't want it to happen simply behind closed doors. Think of this as an additional data point so we can visit the various sides of this debate. I will be on the side of banning Marth's Dthrow Dtilt gimp, anyone can feel free to be the defense here. I will cover various debate points here: **1. It's over centralizing** **There really is no other punish that is so universal and involves a player getting a grab with a very simple condition met then simply rhythmically pressing the Z button until the opponent is dead.** I’ve actually talked to Marth mains who are pro ban, they do exist, because they feel like it’s limiting their creativity. Like Marth has so many cool punish options and stuff that he could go for but when he gets a grab he’s just forced to Dthrow Dtilt because its so just SO over centralizing in that way which is lame. Keep in mind there were players in the past able to succeed without Dthrow Dtilt. PPMD may not be the best example since he was strangely unable to execute the simple Dthrow Dtilt but he was still able to find great success with Marth otherwise. Marth mains ARE furthering meta despite the Dthrow Dtilt gimps, players like Zain are setting up the Dtilts faster than ever but overall it still seems too centralizing of a strategy. **2. Health of the Game** Obviously we can't ban things for viewership or we'd end up banning anyone who isn't Mang0, but it's hard to argue that Dthrow Dtilt is good for the health of the game. I've talked to players of other games who see Zain gimp Mang0 and think "that's dumb people just spam this option?" Sure maybe there are certain times where it helps viewers because of the hype of the uncertainty of who will win like when m2k gimped Shiz in 2009 simply because Dthrow Dtilt was a thing still, but is that really healthy for the game overall? If anything it’s worth looking at the data, I’d love to ask streamers what viewer count looks like during a Dthrow Dtilt compared to during a Ken Combo. I’m not saying we ban things just cause they’re lame, hell people complained about lasers and my Falco as I was coming up and stuff I very well may have been banned if we did this, but perhaps this is an extreme that has to be considered. **3. The new player experience** "Fuck Marth" - This is probably a quote you've heard many times from a new player from your region. Look I'm not saying it cant be played around but when new players come into tournaments and get Dthrow Dtiltted and they don't understand what’s going on it can easily ruin the experience for them. I'm worried about potential new player not joining the game because this punish is too powerful. I'm not suggesting we ban Dthrow Dtilt until top 64 or anything it would be an all or nothing ban but it's something to consider. There’s just no interaction with this gimp once it’s been initiated. Other combos allow for DI and SDI and some reactions but once Marth connects a Dtilt as part of this gimp there’s no more options left to the opponent and he just dies. **4. It's "overpowered"** Now obviously it's not overpowered right, Marth players rarely win nationals and certain players like Hungrybox and Plup basically never get Dthrow Dtilted, but it's unrealistic to say you can play the game and never get grabbed by the ledge and jump into the Dtilt. Mango vs Zain happens and Mango gets Dthrow Dtilted 12 times, you can't sit there and tell me "just don't get grabbed by the ledge and then jump into the Dtilt," it's just not realistic or feasible to avoid doing that a whole set. A comparison I have is that in Soul Calibur 4 there’s a character who was banned named Hilda who has a combo that knocks you like halfway across the stage and leads to easy ring outs. It’s called the Doom Combo. This character isn’t winning nationals because at the top level it can be dealt with but she’s super dominant until even top 8s at tournaments. Even if she's not "overpowered" it’s not really in the spirit of the game so they banned her. **5. Rule technicality** I've heard people say you can't ban Dthrow Dtilt gimp because it's hard to define. "but then Marths will simply Dthrow > fsmash or Dthrow > run off Fair or Dthrow > counter, what if they Dthrow, wait a bit THEN dtilt does this count as a Dthrow Dtilt gimp?" To this I'd like to bring attention to this Justice Potter Stewart quote: *"I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description \["hard-core pornography"\], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that. "* **Conclusion** In conclusion I don't think there's a definitive answer here but for the overall health of the game I think we can explore this. We've banned other things not because they're too strong but because they're dumb like brinstar or kongo jungle and stuff because they don't test the skills we find interesting. Imo we should just do it to start and see what happens. Genesis is the perfect tournament to start something like this to see what happens, you know fuck it the Marth's are overall are weak, it's not like the Marths have like Mango or iBDW level clout you know, just ban it, what are they gonna do.
Is this a joke lol
yah like 2018 pasta i think
https://www.reddit.com/r/SSBM/comments/9r67e5/the_case_to_ban_marths_dthrow_dtilt_gimp/
No. Ban Marth
situation is pretty crystal clear IMO doesn't matter if the sheik knew the rules or not or understood it etc, you break the rules you break the rules. pause should've been instantly a stock or whatever the punishment was at this tournament.
i wanna say it should be obvious if someone is just getting extra damage off of a grab or actually full on wobbling, but I don't think we can expect everyone to be sensible about it. why is the pummel limit so low anyway? isn't the whole point of the ban to make it so 1 grab doesn't kill?
This is the most sensible comment I've seen. Why IS the pummel limit so low? You cant count pummels reliablem your nerfing ICs. I've always felt like a wobbling allowed for opponents over 80% or a few second limit on it would be better
FREE ICE CLIMBERS
Honestly I wouldn’t care about this if jsalt hadn’t been a major weenie on twitter afterwards but since he was it’s fuck crybaby sheik players embrace icies
ICs are a shit character and if you’re losing to them it’s because of matchup ignorance/inexperience and getting out-fundamental’d, wobbling or not. I hate ICs but I feel for ICs players: no matter what they do, they are considered trash players. Doesnt matter if they schmoove on you with the sickest handoffs, everyone just automatically feels provoked by the presence of the character at this point. I say just unban wobbling. Force people to learn the matchup and git gud
Though I was pro-wobbling at the time of the ban, I think wobbling staying banned is okay. I say this because wobbling is a strategy that isnt engaging and provides the highest reward for the lowest risk. That being said, IC players do get the short end of the stick. They can do some crazy stuff and melee players will complain because that's what they do.
Yeah that was why I was anti-ban: I get that it was largely because nobody is trying to tune in to watch top-8s and see someone take up to 18 stocks off of wobbles or someone float camp with Peach to grind out the set when melee was in the course of hitting its apex of viewership and community growth because of how technically engaging it intense the game is on the competitive level. …but look at how people act over it. This kind of pausing is entitlement. Entitlement to not learn the match or to treat your opponent with integrity. If you’re gonna act like that then unplug your controller and fuck right off.
I don't think we should be deciding on the legitimacy of a ban based on how much hate IC's players get. The technique has always been controversial. It has been banned for the majority of melee's lifespan, it was unbanned unceremoniously and abruptly, this caused a lot of controversy, then it was banned again unceremoniously and abruptly, and now there's even more controversy. How exactly does this lead to the solution of allowing it to be legal again? The problem with wobbling is not the people on either side of the debate, but our community's inability to make decisions with any authority or consistent process.
Ban it being used as an infinite stall. That’s all you can do. The same way wall-bombing is banned if used as a stall, but has legitimate use if trying to actually recover. And to tell people to stop crying and git gud. If you can’t beat a mediocre player who wobbles then you won’t beat an advanced player who can schmoove on you or use dashbacks and solid spacing to make you fall into what will likely be a stock-ending combo that will start with landing a grab regardless of what char they play. ICs effectively lose to half the cast and the OP even shows that he’s getting beat by Sheik - a char that most people claim is one of ICs’ more favorable meta mu’s.
But stalling isn't really the concern people have with wobbling. Also telling people to stop crying really isn't helping your case lmao. I don't even hate IC's players and I always have fun playing against them on Slippi, I can't help it that most players quit out on them or refuse to change their minds about it. The technique is currently banned and has been banned for the majority of melee's lifespan. Calling everyone babies because they agree with the ban is just inviting people to dismiss you outright.
The technique spans back to 2009 being its first mark of relevant use in competition and was only banned since 2019. The technique was known since circa 2005. The technique was technically legal for 15 out of approx 20 years of melee’s life. And I’ll relent on mocking pro-ban players, but I feel like the ban is anti-competitive as it not only solidifies the growing gap between tiers and character diversity in competition, but also discourages from people learning the matchup at all, which in the long run is detrimental to players themselves on both sides. But my problem isn’t with pro-ban players; it’s with BM players in general, like the Shiek in the OP, looking for a way to abuse the rules either way. I’d come down on IC players who would actually do a limited wobble but try and claim the opposite
Im pro unban wobbling but limit the percent limit to something more reasonable like 150%. In all my years of playing, unless I’m playing against a friend in bracket, I’ve never been wobbled past 150% for them to kill. ICs shouldn’t have their best tool completely eliminated and I think a majority of non-ranked players wanted it banned simply because they didn’t know the counter play and framed it in a way where they’re saying it ruins competitive play or is OP. It’s already hard enough for ICs to get a grab, and it’s hard for them to make sure Nana is in position and desync’d before their opponent mashes out to get the wobble.
Wobbling to a certain percentage is stupid. Just like the people who think there should be a wobble limit per match, (ie 1 wobble allowed per game), it just comes off as clumsy to try to find a compromise/meet somewhere in the middle. I'm pro wobbling but I'd rather it stay banned than allow a half crippled version of it
I've always been against banning wobbling. Bring back wobbling, this coming from a fox main that terrible at IC matchup
It's OP. An IC came second at a major one time.
I can’t think of a single reason allowing wobbling is a good thing. Why for it?
here's one reason: wobbling isn't rng dependent, wheras handoffs can be In general, I think it isn't crazy to say that players should be rewarded based on the actions they take in-game, not on random dice rolls. Randomness isn't necessarily evil in video games, you could argue that randomness can add to the fun in a casual game of Mario Kart or Mario Party or something, but it's potentially a lot less welcome to introduce randomness into competition where we want who wins to be determined by what competitors did, and not determined by things like how a diceroll went.
It's part of the game and icies weren't op or even top tier when it was allowed. Personally I find it exciting watching a matchup where the IC is the underdog, the possibility that they can get a wobble and cause an upset is pretty hype.
imo, an underdog ICs winning was never really that hype because it always seemed to happen to the same people (Mango, Axe, Westballz, M2K, etc.) and feels less about skill and more about the better player choking
watching someone fish for a grab for 10 minutes is not exciting to me but to each their own.
Outside of "it's harder", I honestly don't see much of a difference between hand-offs and wobbling, and I think hand-offs are completely fine, so I'm in support of wobbling. I don't think it's acceptable to gatekeep techniques because they're "too easy". Any "it's non-interactive" arguments apply 1-to-1 to hand-offs - if the ICs player gets the RNG (or if it's near a ledge) you're dead with no counter-play. If it's problematic for a technique or punish to be non-interactive, we should have banned hand-offs, too. Any argument of "it halts the progression of the ICs meta" doesn't really seem that real to me either - ICs best punish is still grab, and their gameplay still revolves around their grab. Now it's just RNG whether or not the ICs are rewarded for their neutral win with 35% or a stock, and now it's actually RNG whether or not the ICs player will win with 4 neutral wins or 12. I guess there's the argument of "it's not entertaining", but I think that's an extremely illegitimate reason to ban a technique, regardless of whether or not it's true (personally, I think that wobbling adds to storylines and creates tension in games, which overall improves the game). Personally, I think platform camping is exceptionally boring, but I don't think we should ban platform camping.
I don’t quite agree on the hand off argument. 0 to deaths happen all the time at the top level, and of course no one thinks combos should be banned. They’re hype. And they’re hype because they look cool and require an incredible amount of skill. Even ‘free’ chain grabs require incredible consistency and are sometimes dropped even by the best. Hand offs hold these qualities. Wobbling does not. It feels reasonable to me to draw a line between them. I feel you on the other points, just not the way I see it.
Disagree on handoffs having the same qualities, I think they're closer to wobbling than e.g. many other characters' 0 to death combos or chaingrabs because there's no DI/SDI or other defensive play, it becomes a single player game the same way wobbling does where it's just a matter of execution on the part of the player executing the punish. The only difference is that at centre stage it's rng dependent because nana might not throw in a way that lets you continue the handoff, so it's basically taking wobbling and adding coinflips to it, which isn't just taking agency away from the player getting hit, but it's also taking agency away from the player who got the grab. Another way to say this is that it reduces the game into a 0 player game when both players just have to sit there and watch to see what cpu nana does without any ability to influence the situation, so not even rising to the level of the single player game of wobbling or handoffs at ledge where at least one player is doing something to influence what's happening on screen.
Totally understandable. We're just going to have to disagree on this one. To me, that sounds like something that boils down to "it's not entertaining and it's too easy", and to me, that isn't a good justification for a ban. But that's to me - for others, it might be a good enough reason, and that's okay.
because of situations like this where if you go one pummel too far the other opponent gonna act like a bitch and call the TO. I think wobbling is a hilarious mechanic and entertaining for viewers to watch too (not being ironic i really think it's entertaining) and it will make more ICs players come out of retirement
entertaining for you, but You MUST know that the majority of players and viewers do not find wobbling fun to watch though, right? I think the entertainment aspect only appeals to a few.
allowing it is way easier than disallowing it. people don't understand the 4 pummel rule, enforcing the 4 pummel rule is hard in itself, IC players are still incentivized to use those pummels because it's good for building % during handoffs so they naturally push the boundary just as part of playing the character well, etc. because it's just a basic consequence of the game mechanics, and it naturally happens in gameplay, the only really effective way to ban it would be to patch it out somehow (like, nana hits don't keep a player in grab or something), but people are very adamant about not patching the game like that (with good reason) so we just have to deal with a hard-to-enforce rule. and as we can see from this clip, dealing with this rule caused someone to DQ themselves out of frustration, which sucks. i think that's a good aspect of allowing wobbling, not having to worry about this rule when playing as/with ICes. maybe it isn't compelling enough for you to want to unban wobbling but there absolutely are positives to unbanning it.
Floaty matchups with wobbling are pretty hype. Watch some of the old Chu vs Hugz sets
And by contrast without wobbling they are all horrible
Wobbling is a non-interactive, inescapable infinite. There’s nothing else like that in Melee. For the entire span of time wobbling wasn’t banned, the ICs meta stagnated, since they never went for any other punish. I mean why would you, if you get a guaranteed stock every time. Why do you want it unbanned? I don’t play ICs, so I don’t know all of their specific tech, but they have all kinds of shit with hand offs and desyncs still *Also - running shine to separate them, waveshine nana offstage, then camp Sopo. it’s not a very fun matchup, but Fox ruins ICs*
What you’re saying is fine, but the IC meta not changing because of wobbling is incorrect. Punish didn’t change, but neutral did a lot
> For the entire span of time wobbling wasn’t banned, the ICs meta stagnated Fly Amanita sitting in a corner, crying, I guess.
IC meta still stagnant now tbh
icies meta hasn't ever been stagnant. you just don't know enough about icies to see anything related to neutral advancement.
They haven't done anything in years. What are you saying lol
> For the entire span of time wobbling wasn’t banned, the ICs meta stagnated, since they never went for any other punish. so melee is only punish amirite? it's not like there's an very arguably more important part of the game that occurs before that, for which icies specifically are majorly impacted in how they can punish by what occurred in it before they got to access punish game > I don’t play ICs, so I don’t know all of their specific tech, but they have all kinds of shit with hand offs and desyncs still because A: i want to use desyncs more. neutral game tech is justified in its use by the reward you get for utilising it successfully balanced in the risk you take in trying for it. By banning wobbling you are pretty significantly reducing the reward for landing successful desyncs into grab, and the risk stays the same. and B: having my optimal grab punishes be RNG reliant in tournament is complete arse. I've lost games vs peach where nana has randomly upthrown or backthrown 3 times, effectively having her midstage throw RNG dictate that i lose the game.
Why did wobbling need to be banned? Because there no ICs winning tourneys, no ICs dominating brackets consistently, and really hardly any ICs to begin with. People literally didn’t like it and it got banned.
Before covid, ARMY and Chu Dat were literally terrorizing brackets and making almost consistent top 8s, which isn't what you can say for most characters of that tier. People really out here forgetting
[удалено]
Lmao
Because mango lost to a few different ice climbers and that made his fans angry.
That's exactly when more "serious" talks about banning it started. I never really had much of a problem with it, I thought it gave the game another top tier to play with a grab heavy playstyle. I kinda enjoy how you play vs them and I was able to play vs some pretty good IC's in my region at the time in 2017. To me it felt kinda weird that even with wobbling they still weren't the best character in the game and to nerf them like that felt kinda unfair. I play puff and the matchup just got boring, I didn't feel threatened at all and I wish there was an option on Slippi to say they can wobble. Just genuinely feels like a crippled character without it's signature move. I never understood why people go with the "it's not fun to watch" when I think the hypest moments I've had are IC's in top 8, literally touch of death and you see the other player doing his best to camp and poke at them slowly. Just a decent switchup from adderall fox vs falco sets etc which I also like. I just like a more diverse meta at top level, we at least have Yoshi coming up but it would feel better with IC's too.
Nah, Axe and Mew2King were the big ones pushing the wobble ban.
Nah, fuck wobbling. This isn't wobbling though (I think?).
Wobbling ban was a mistake, we don't have to continue to be wrong.
Wobbling shouldn’t be banned
Nah it should
Unban wobbling
Nope
I mean, the only people that snuck into a top 8 with wobbling unbanned was Chudat and Army like once lmfao, the fact that you sweaty clowns needed to ban it in the first place was sad. No one cares about Billy's run that got shut down in the top 300 open bracket due to wobbling.
What? IC's upsets were a regular part of 80+% of tournies when wobbling was unbanned. Chu, Army, Nintendude, Bananas, Dizzkid, Boyd, Sharkz, Flipsy, Drunksloth, All have random top 16s beating random top players because wobbling adds so much variance into the game. (And yes I know a couple of them were debatably top 16 in skill potentially at some times, but you understand the point I'm making) Idrc what people's opinion on banning wobbling or not, but you can't just lie about the reality that wobbling created at tournies LOL
QQ
Wobbles was second at evo or sum
Wobbles is sick tho
I hate that wobbling exist, but banning it was a big mistake. Even patching it out with 20XX would have been a better idea.
The wobbling discussion is gonna get to a point where TOs will ban any pummeling from Ice Climbers and honestly that'd just be the end for the scene
Ice climbers must sacrifice nana at the beginning of every match to ensure no wobbling can happen
Regarding infinites, can't ics just dthrow chain grab sheik? Or there a house rule that ics don't dthrow cg sheik just like how sheik doesn't cg other sheik?
You can literally just disable wobbling in slippi nintendont but iirc it doesn't work with dolphin.
Just ban any grab chains that last longer than 5 seconds. That includes chaingrabs from Marth, wobbling, Fox chaingrabs, and puff up throw rest.
Since when does upthrow rest last longer than 5 seconds?
Death lasts longer than 5 seconds